Who here has accidentally purchased a car.

I have done it a couple times. The most common scenario is I make an offer I know is way under market value thinking that they will never actually say yes. And they then say yes.  

I now own a BMW Z4 M.  

I am sure you all must have some I accidentally purchased a car story's. 
 

This is not a keeper for me. This person needed the money. I underestimated how badly they needed the money.  (I thought they were joking). I will be selling this on after a complete service. 
 

dean1484 said:

I now own a BMW Z4 M.  

...

This is not a keeper for me. This person needed the money. I underestimated how badly they needed the money.  (I thought they were joking). I will be selling this on after a complete service. 

Orly?

I recently signed up for an IAAI auction account, so of  course, YES I have.  Threw out what I thought was a ridiculously low bid and won the car.

I've accidentally bought a motorcycle.

My grandfather signed some paperwork to test drive a 1949 Ford for a weekend in the early 1950's to find out it was a scam and he had agreed to buy.  Car sales laws weren't as strict as they are today.  In the end it all worked out.  
 

Ugh... yeah... but in my defense it is worth every penny that I have not paid for it. 

Multiple times. 

Kind of. I was working for someone who owed me $X. When it came for payroll he gave me the title to an Isuzu Oasis. It was a cream puff and I immediately sold it to a neighbor for $2X . He drove it 200K more.

With this crowd, I think the list might be shorter if we asked who hadn't.

The last accidental purchase I made was when the PO of my AC911 project annointed me the keeper. Happens less with cars , though, but certainly not unusual when it comes to motorcycles.

In reply to dean1484 :

I'm interested in hearing/seeing more about this car and having dibs. Is it a convertible or a coupe? 

Yes. See also:

guns

guitars

dogs

tools 

This is not a car but I thought I would share my most retarded purchase ever. I was at a Richie Brothers auction (first mistake) and watching some big equipment sell. They started the bidding on one of these things.

It was a Cat D379 V12 generator.  The motor alone weighed 12,000 pounds. That radiator is over 8 feet tall. No one bid on it. Thats because they were all smart enough to realize that an obsolete NA diesel putting out laughable horsepower and needing heavy equipment to move was not worth the price of the steel. But I smelled a bargain so I stupidly raised my paddle. The auctioneer immediately yelled SOLD! And I was out $2500.00. It cost $750 to truck to my dad's farm because I had to move it or pay storage and I owned a house in a subdivision. Dad was not happy to see it arrive. It sat there for three years and I finally hired a scrap company and a big loader from a quarry to lift it onto a flatbed to haul it away. I got $1500 for scrap value which paid for the loading and trucking. That was the last time I ever registered for a Richie Brothers auction. Looking for a photo I see there are still a few out there being unloaded for similar money. 

In reply to dean1484 :

Please let me know when you decide to sell it.

I wouldn't call it an accident more like a surprise that my best offer was the winner. This is why I don't bid on multiple cars at the same time anymore. 

In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :

Sorry about the headache but that's a hilarious story.  Probably not that funny when your dad tells it. 

OHSCrifle said:

In reply to dean1484 :

I'm interested in hearing/seeing more about this car and having dibs. Is it a convertible or a coupe? 

Nevermind. Checked specs. Just one more car that I won't fit in! Good luck fixing and flipping.
Why did the seller let it go so cheap?

I forgot - my school district would do a sealed envelope bid and advertised the used trucks in the local newspaper.  Nobody was using the internet so I scanned the bids often and never won anything until I raised my bid and hit this truck for $2400.  1986 Chevrolet 4x4 with plow frame but no plow.   

I'm like crap, now what.  I cleaned it up and advertised it in Autotrader for $4800.  The AT was delivered to the convenience stores on Thursday night and my phone started ringing.  First guy bought it for $4500 and my phone rang solid for three weeks. 

I didn't need the truck and my wife asked me to stop bidding on these vehicles.  
 

OHSCrifle said:

OHSCrifle said:

In reply to dean1484 :

I'm interested in hearing/seeing more about this car and having dibs. Is it a convertible or a coupe? 

Nevermind. Checked specs. Just one more car that I won't fit in! Good luck fixing and flipping.
Why did the seller let it go so cheap?

Don't know specifics but as I understand it they needed $$$ to pay healthcare expenses for a family member.  

ShawnG said:

I've accidentally bought a motorcycle.

Me too. I was at a public sale when I first got married, buying furniture and household items we needed. There was a early 1970s Honda CL350 there, perfect paint, but obviously hadn't been ridden in over a decade. No takers at $100. Opening bid kept dropping. I raised my hand at $35 and won it.

It needed tires and a battery, plus the usual carb cleaning. The tank looked perfect inside. I got it running, tagged and inspected at which point if promptly quit alongside the road. In retrospect, I suppose the tank wasn't as perfect as it looked from the filler cap. I wound up with about $300 in it. Sold it for $500 as I wasn't interested in motorcycles back then. 

79 Porsche 924S on ebay in 1999-2000.  One of the few optioned to be set up for racing.  Minimal weight so no options other than suspension and LSD rear.  It had been in the shop for track prep and they never got it running right.  Got it for 1500, and the delivered it to the house.  Turned out to be plug wires not pushed all the way down on the plug, remember VW wires with metal sleeves? Also two fuel lines were swapped so the warm up regulator and cold start lines were wrong.  That car turned out to be the most awesome track car for a beginner.  In 3 years I moved thru 3 PCA run groups and never put more than tires and one spark plug wire into it.   Sold for $3500.

About twenty years ago I for some reason was looking at a burnt orange '77 Delta 88 with 27K miles.  Near perfect car.  The seller thought he had a classic that was worth near $5K, in spite of the orange vinyl bench seats...

I sort of threw out an unserious offer of $2K.  A couple days later I got a call:  "I'll take it."

Wife got home after a week up north with the kids and her first words in the house were "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"  Drove it for a few years and gave it to my son.

Yep, that's how there is a Toyletta Commoda Hornet "race" "car" out back. My pal ran an auto shop, a customer gave away the car to him, we brought it here and painted it yellow with black stripes and added the world's worst roll cage in order to pass Hornet "race" "tech inspection"... well it was a total laugh riot but the folks we beats, that actually took this stuff seriously, acted like we went and peed in their Cheerios. Prolly just as well for em that we finally managed to make it not wanna start. What I failed to take into account was that since I am the one closest to the fairgrounds, that it should stay here to recover.... so yeah, it's still out back, with a fair number of alders growing around it. Dunno if it counts as an accidental "purchase", but since I bought summa dat paint, as well as at least one paint roller...

I've won 3 auctions I've bid low on and wasn't outbid 7 days later.  

Almost. 

A guy on a 4x4 forum berkeleyed himself all up and another guy was auctioning off a 1962 IH pick-up on a K20 running gear to give the $$ to the guy. I bid 1500 for it and barely got beat at the 11th hour. No dang clue what I would have done with the thing.

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

It was a Cat D379 V12 generator.  The motor alone weighed 12,000 pounds. That radiator is over 8 feet tall. No one bid on it. Thats because they were all smart enough to realize that an obsolete NA diesel putting out laughable horsepower and needing heavy equipment to move was not worth the price of the steel.

At my last office we had a backup generator sized like that in an enclosure about as big as a semi-trailer.   I don't remember the exact model but I found it put out 2000hp.  4 turbos.  A crew would come out to maintain it 2X/yr.  Once just a start and idle.  For the other, they would put a load on it (heating elements, I think).   I was bummed that I never caught a load test.  The tech I spoke to told me it was just awesome when all the turbos spooled up.